[ExI] Is the ExI email list slowly dying out? And if so, what can be done to reverse such an outcome?

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 8:01 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:32 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> I'm not sure if he was much of a liability as you say. I didn't feel
>> he was dominating discussions when he was here. More just adding his
>> views and analysis to the mix.
>
> I was only thinking liability in the sense of allowing one player to "carry the ball" so frequently that we get accustomed.

I don't think he was doing that. Or that's my perception. It's that
many others -- particularly one person -- suddenly started flooding
the list with political concerns, particularly ones of US electoral
politics. There were others, too, that were conversing with Anders,
but the whole discussion shifted more toward those politics and then,
after a few months, he left. It was a loss, but I don't think Anders
was carrying the ball, so to speak.

>>> Anyway... what's the problem we're trying to solve?
>>
>> The subject line talks about it, no? Is it true? I've been here long
>> enough to see posting often comes in waves. That's the same with other
>> email groups I'm involved with. Sometimes someone posts something
>
> Yeah, but a subject line is a twitter post; not an in-depth discussion of the salient features
>
> I get your point though.

I thought your point was about having actionable items too. That's
kind of hard to do, especially now with competing realms for
discussion. I guess try to get new people aboard is the first one, but
they have to be people who will contribute -- else you get someone
who's just lurking and that won't change what's going on much. Another
is to try to re-focus more on Extropian topics. (Which still happens.
Look at the recent discussions of mind, for instance. I didn't
participate because these things tend to grow too quickly for me to
follow and I don't feel I can add much here.)

This also reminds me of a libertarian list I've been on since the
mid-2000s. A decade ago, discussions there were heated and there were
maybe twenty people who carried most of the conversation. Now it's
down to maybe four people with the posts being mainly reactions to
each other and little else.

Regards,

Dan
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